


Royal Mail

by zilia



Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Flip Phone, Gen, One Shot, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Shuri is an almighty science goddess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 19:39:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14527737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zilia/pseuds/zilia
Summary: A short conversation in Shuri's lab.





	Royal Mail

**Author's Note:**

> The flip-phone bothered me, so I came up with an explanation for it.

Steve sighs and scrubs his hand over his face, tossing yet another balled-up piece of paper to the floor. He has no idea what to say to Tony. Everything he writes sounds either way too insincere or else cloyingly sentimental. Strangely enough, it’s very difficult to find the right way to express sorrow for your best friend having killed your other friend’s parents.

 

“Hey! Why are you cluttering up my lab with this?”

 

The young princess of Wakanda is walking towards him, and he gets hastily to his feet to show her the respect she deserves, kicking a couple of the scrunched-up balls to one side as he does so.

 

“Your…” he starts, unsure of whether he needs to follow that up with “majesty” or “highness,” but she interrupts him before he can choose one or the other.

 

“Just ‘Shuri’ will do. Although ‘almighty science goddess’ has a nice ring to it.”

 

He doesn’t know whether she’s being serious, so he says nothing.

 

“My brother told me you need a way to contact Tony Stark,” she says. “Something a bit faster than a letter. Though it doesn’t look like you’re getting anywhere with that.”

 

“Yeah, I….” Steve starts, but she’s interrupting again, pushing something into his hand.

 

“I found this in one of our museum vaults,” she says, her face perfectly straight apart from a slight tremble at one side of her mouth. “Look like something you could use?”

 

He looks down at it. It’s a flip-phone. He’s never handled one himself – they were outdated _long_ before he came out of the ice – but he’s seen them in movies and TV shows and heard the others laughing at how dated they are. To Wakandans, they must look completely ridiculous. He knows full well what Tony would make of it.

 

“I can’t send this to him! He’d think it was prehistoric.”

 

 _Like me,_ he thinks, with a pang. That’s exactly the kind of joke Tony would make, too, to try to get a rise out of him. Now he’s not sure he’ll ever even see him face-to-face again. He doesn’t regret his actions for one moment, but it still aches to think of everything they’ve cost him, and the team.

 

She scoffs. “It _is_ prehistoric. Or it was. I’ve made some modifications which should make it more useful to you. The older models are easier to encrypt and make untraceable, so I used one as a base, but I’ve boosted it so that nobody will ever be able to trace it back to you if it falls into the wrong hands.”

 

Steve doesn’t understand. “Wouldn’t it be better to give him a number rather than a phone?”

 

She gives him a pitying look that reminds him of Natasha. “Sure, if you’d like anyone on the planet with the right equipment to be able to work out where you are. Go right ahead. See how quickly somebody swoops down on you and locks you up.”

 

He wants to trust her, but he’s always been a little sceptical of technology.

 

“Won’t Tony just think I’m mocking him with something so outdated?”

 

She shakes her head. “I’ve left enough clues there for him to know something modified when he sees it. Nobody else, mind, just Stark. Trust me, he’ll be intrigued enough to look closer, and when he does, he’ll know what to do.”

 

“I’m not sure I understand.”

 

“Well, if I was only going to use technology you understood, we’d be looking at two tin cans connected by the world’s longest piece of string.”

 

He forgets she’s a princess for a moment. “Do you think you’re funny?”

 

“No, I _know_ I’m funny.” It’s a glib, practised response, but it’s like armour; there’s something it’s protecting. Steve sees suddenly how hard this must be for her, remembers that she lost her father shortly before he lost almost all his friends, and he bites down on the retort on the tip of his tongue. She’s just a kid.

 

There’s a silence for a few moments, while Steve keeps thinking. His head hurts. The exhaustion and grief of the past few days have caught up with him, leaving him with a kind of fog where his brain used to be. Then something else occurs to him.

 

“Won’t the Wakandan postmark be a bit of a giveaway?”

 

The pitying look is back. “ _As if_ I’d send this by conventional post. We have ways of getting it into the system with no trace of Wakanda on it. Once you’ve finished your letter, I can arrange for it to be sent. _Assuming you finish it some time this century_.”

 

Steve recognises the instruction for what it is. “OK, OK, I’ll get on it,” he says. “Just give me a little more time.”

 

“Good. Now, please excuse me. I need to get back to your…friend.”

 

There’s the tiniest pause before she says it, the slightest hint of a question, but Steve doesn’t feel like discussing it, and after a moment she leaves him in peace.

 

Three hours later, Steve walks into the lab across the hall where Shuri is working. Wordlessly, he sets the letter down on her workbench, next to the modified phone, and continues on to resume his vigil by the cryotube in the next room.

 

She stares at the envelope thoughtfully for a moment, then reaches for a pen, and alters the ‘r’ to an ‘n’.


End file.
